


on the drive home

by choomchoom



Series: Endings & Beginnings [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Cooking Lessons, Existential Crisis, Fluff, Getting Together, Grad Student AU, Grad Student Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choomchoom/pseuds/choomchoom
Summary: Rodimus and Drift first meet for real in the grad student office at eleven at night.





	on the drive home

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by driftrod, the Infinite Briefcases server (especially @veto-power-over-clocks' med AU), grad school, and the concept of Take Your Fandom to Work Day. 
> 
> This fic depicts a motor vehicle accident; instructions for skipping that scene are in the end notes.

The student office was dark, as was to be expected any night at nearly eleven PM. _Nerd_ , the shadows on the walls seemed to sneer at Rodimus. _Only losers enter the office at night. Neeeeerd._

Rodimus flicked the light switch on to shut them up. As soon as he did, something stirred in one corner of the room.

Rodimus couldn’t stop himself from letting out a startled little screech and flattened himself against the nearest wall as the figure on the floor – a human, he was pretty sure, and not some kind of wild animal bent on devouring his flesh like he’d first suspected – turned toward him.

He deflated immediately when he recognized Drift’s face and long hair under the brim of the oversized red hoodie he was wearing. “What are you doing in here?” Rodimus asked, his voice too high, trying and probably failing to hide that his heartbeat still hadn’t slowed down.

“Napping,” Drift said, with the defensive tone of someone who had been caught at something they hadn’t wanted to be caught at.

“It’s not a nap if it’s after dark,” Rodimus said, making that up on the spot. There was…something going on here, something more than Drift was saying, and Rodimus had never known how not to push.

Drift rose from the floor so that he was leaning against the wall and started fiddling with the string on the second hoodie that he’d been using as a pillow. “What are _you_ doing here so late?” Drift asked, deflecting.

Rodimus held up his flash drive, on which his completed and hopefully typo-free written exam was contained, and then walked over to the printer to print it, because if he didn’t do it now he would probably forget to do it entirely. “Just finished the take-home portion of the exam for Seminar,” he said once the printer’s internals were whirring. He left his flash drive plugged in and peered back around the corner, to where Drift was now sitting slumped, head held up by his hands. “Are you doing okay?”

Drift sighed instead of answering in the affirmative or negative. Rodimus grabbed his papers and took his time arranging them for the stapler while he waited Drift out.

“I’m not, like, homeless, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Drift finally said. Rodimus stapled his papers and walked back around the corner to put them very slowly into the proper folder (never before used) in his backpack. “My house is just, uh, hectic. Not the best of environments the night before an exam.”

“Worse than the floor in the student office?” Rodimus asked skeptically. That was…there was a line, somewhere, of what people should have to put up with, and what Drift was doing his best not to describe was clearly past it.

Drift smiled, and Rodimus could feel himself softening at it. “Sleeping on the floor is supposed to be good for you, you know. Our ancestors did it.”

“Come over,” Rodimus said on an impulse. “I’ve got a futon in the living room that we have people sleep on all the time. You know Bumblebee, right? He’s a second year – and my roommate. Anyway, he won’t mind.”

Drift hesitated. Rodimus suspected that he would be saying _No thank you, I’d rather sleep on the floor in the office,_ if it sounded less ridiculous than it did. “You’re sure it’s not a problem?” he asked instead.

Success! “Absolutely not. I don’t know the names of half the people Bumblebee lets sleep over for AmeriCorps interviews, you’re definitely an upgrade from that. It’s seriously no trouble.” Rodimus zipped up his bag and swung it over his shoulder. This could be awkward – he and Drift were in the same cohort, but they’d never become friends in the three months since their Masters in Community Development program had started. Good thing Rodimus was aces at steamrolling his way through awkward situations.

“You ready for the exam?” Drift asked as they walked out to the bus stop.

“Much as ever,” Rodimus not-answered. Much as ever…wasn’t very much, truth be told, but he had a hard time getting himself to study things that he couldn’t see himself ever applying. The focus of this unit was Nonprofit Management, which Rodimus knew he would never do.

That described…too many of his classes. But Optimus had said he should do this program, and Rodimus trusted Optimus. He had to believe that eventually, something valuable would come of this.

“It sounds like you’re not ready for the exam,” Drift noted.

Rodimus chuckled. “I’m not. And it’s because I can’t seem to make myself give a shit about the exam.” Maybe it was the eight hours he’d spent in the library today, maybe something about this weird situation with Drift was compelling him to share, and maybe he’d just had _enough_.

Drift cocked his head at Rodimus in question, and Rodimus sighed. “Before grad school I was making no money at all managing the front desk and organizing events at a community center downtown. I loved it. But my boss kept nagging me to quit – ironic, right? – because I had ‘potential.’ He wanted me to have – his position, I _thought_ – a position like his, someday, where I could really make change. I applied here not expecting to get in. My undergrad GPA, uh…wasn’t the best. But he must have written a killer rec letter or something, because here I am.” Rodimus took a breath. He’d never told this story to anyone in the program – not counting Bumblebee, who had already known. It was stupid. It made him sound stupid, and he hated that. “The center was shut down like a week after I got in. No more funding. Optimus got another job across the country. I think he knew in advance. I think he wanted to set me up for the future, and that was nice of him – that was nice of him.” Rodimus cut himself off there. _But I’m starting to think that he never believed I could succeed_ was how that sentence ended, and that was…too much.

They’d reached the bus stop, and for a few moments both of them just breathed in the cool October air. “That sounds frustrating – spending all this time and energy and not knowing if it’ll ever relate to what you’re trying to accomplish,” Drift offered.

Rodimus was flooded with relief at Drift’s response, which was so many degrees better than the _You’re an idiot_ that he’d expected that story to be met with. “Who knows? It might be useful, someday,” Rodimus said. “But I’d rather learn it in context.”

“Makes sense,” Drift said. The bus pulled up then, and they both lost the thread of conversation in the bustle of getting on and finding seats.

“My apartment is on Dugan Court – off College Street,” Rodimus said. It was about a five minute ride, or a twenty minute walk from campus.

Drift nodded and stifled a yawn. “I’m right down the street, actually – I usually take the 3, but I’m on Fourth, between Dugan and Wells.”

“You were in this city before grad school too, right?” Rodimus asked. He had only fuzzy memories of interacting with Drift during orientation, but he remembered hearing Drift explaining the ins and outs of the bus system to Pipes in way more detail than anyone who’d just moved here would know.

“Yeah. I moved here after undergrad, about…three years back.”

“What were you up to before grad school?”

Drift smiled as if at some private joke. “Nothing productive.”

“What does that mean?”

“Bartending, mostly. To pay the bills. I was…doing a lot of unpaid activism. The kind of thing you don’t put on a resume.”

Rodimus’s eyes widened. “You don’t mean-“

“Hey, is this your stop?” Drift asked as the bus pulled up on the corner of Rodimus’s street.

“No, it’s one more down.” Rodimus left it at that, not wanting to pry. Drift’s evasiveness had basically just confirmed that he’d been one of the Decepticons, a radical social action group that had formed in response to a far-right rally in the city a few years ago. Their mission had been clearly outlined and sensible, and their methods had been the hot topic of debate within the city’s social justice community for months. It had all been made moot when the group’s leader had been arrested last year. The world had seemed to keep moving just the same without them in it.

Rodimus had never really thought about the Decepticons still existing as _people_. Of course they did – there had been hundreds of them, at their height, and of course most of them were probably still in the city. But they’d vanished wholesale from Rodimus’s radar when they disbanded.

Drift suddenly seemed a lot more interesting. Rodimus had been…not pro-Decepticon, exactly, but more pro-Decepticon than Optimus. It had been a source of a few arguments before Rodimus had realized that he hated arguing with Optimus more than he liked the work the Decepticons were doing. But…Decepticons were still here, and Optimus wasn’t. For the first time in a long time, Rodimus let himself admit that the Decepticons might have been onto something.

“ _This_ is my stop,” Rodimus said, leading Drift out the bus’s back door onto familiar sidewalk. Drift stepped out behind him, and Rodimus rummaged for his keys as he led Drift the last half-block to his building. “I don’t know if Bumblebee’s home, but like I said, he’s chill with guests.”

The apartment lights were off when Rodimus got in, meaning that Bumblebee was either asleep or at Prowl’s. Rodimus flicked the light on in the main area and looked over at Bumblebee’s door. It hung open, meaning the room was empty and they could be as loud as they wanted.

“Want something to eat?” Rodimus asked, dumping his overfull backpack on the living room chair and heading for the kitchen area, which was blocked off from the rest of the living space only by a counter. “I have ramen and…I have ramen.”

“I’m good,” Drift said, dropping his own backpack at the corner of the couch and following Rodimus towards the kitchen.

“I mean, I have other food too, I just don’t know how to make it,” Rodimus said. “Sandwiches and ramen, I can do. And cereal. But we’re out of milk and peanut butter. We have cheese? Cheese sandwiches are a thing.”

“Do you know how to make grilled cheese?” Drift asked. Rodimus hoped that it was a genuine question, rather than a request. If it was the latter, Drift was about to be disappointed.

“Uh, theoretically? I always burn them.”

“I could show you, if you want? There are tricks for not doing that.”

“Sure!” Rodimus said, more because he could tell that Drift wanted to do something in exchange for Rodimus letting him stay here rather than actually wanting to learn. Also, he did really want grilled cheese.

Rodimus went over to the fridge and got out the cheese, and then grabbed the bread from the freezer. He’d started keeping it there after letting two loaves go bad because he forgot to eat through them in time.

Drift, stepping fully into the kitchen and glancing over the store-brand white bread and cheese slices on the counter, pursed his lips. “Hmm. We can work with that,” he said.

First he had Rodimus defrost the bread, which you apparently did by putting it in the microwave for thirty seconds on medium power. Rodimus insisted that the microwave didn’t have power settings, but Drift stepped over to look, and huh, apparently it did. Then you had to organize the cheese on the bread, and then butter the outsides, and then –

“Mayonnaise?”

“It’s okay if you don’t have any. Just makes the outside crispier.”

Rodimus shrugged and got it out. Seemed like Drift was the expert. Drift had him add a thin layer of mayonnaise to the outside of the sandwich and then start heating up a sandwich pan on medium-low heat. Drift reached over to adjust it when Rodimus struggled to figure out what “medium-low” was supposed to mean, and Rodimus jumped when Drift’s hoodie-clad wrist brushed against his forearm.

“Sorry,” Drift said, turning the burner down some.

“It’s okay,” Rodimus said, trying to tamp down on the fantasies his traitor brain had sprouted at even that tiny physical contact. Had he had a crush on Drift all this time and just not realized it? Or was all of this brand new? “Now we put it in the pan?” He tried to focus.

Drift looked as if Rodimus had suggested they throw the sandwiches out the window. “You have to wait until it’s warmed up!”

Drift kept testing the temperature just above the surface of the pan with his hand, and when he deemed it acceptable, he had Rodimus copy the motion. It felt hot, unsurprisingly. Rodimus hoped that it was hot enough to excuse the flush that he was sure had appeared in his cheeks.

“Think I can handle cooking them both at once?” Rodimus asked.

“I believe in you,” Drift replied. It was a joke – it was obviously, obviously a joke, and Rodimus should respond with a joke of his own. But he blanked and turned away to too-carefully place the sandwiches in the pan, where the butter-and-mayonnaise began to softly sizzle.  

Rodimus stood over the pan terrified that he was going to fuck this up for about a minute, until Drift instructed him to check if it was time to flip. The sandwiches were a restaurant-grade shade of golden brown, and Rodimus deemed them flippable. One terrifying minute of letting the other side brown with the lid on later, he was lifting them out onto plates, flabbergasted at the fact that he’d actually done it.

“I’ve never cooked anything before,” Rodimus said as they carried the sandwiches and glasses of water over to the living area – the apartment wasn’t big enough for a dining table, and the breakfast bar was awkward for conversations.

“I had a – uh – roommate, later boyfriend, during college that taught me how,” Drift said. “His family…he’d been learning since he was a kid. When I met him I could also do ramen and peanut butter sandwiches. Discovering a world beyond that was very liberating.” He bit into the corner of his sandwich, nodding in appreciation as he chewed.

“I share food with Bee, and he actually likes cooking, so I try to take on more than my share of the grocery bill in exchange for the labor. I’ve never even figured out how to make pasta right.”

“Next time, then,” Drift said. He immediately tensed. “I don’t mean to…imply that there’ll be a next time. You’re doing me a huge favor here, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate-”

“If it means more cooking lessons I’m happy for there to be a next time,” Rodimus said, savoring a bite of his own perfectly browned sandwich. “Not if it means your house is so bad that you decide sleeping on campus is a better option, though.”

Drift’s eyes slid away from Rodimus’s. “It’s a…complicated situation,” he said. Rodimus waited him out, hoping that Drift would trust him enough to tell him more. After a moment, Drift sighed. “Do you remember the Decepticons?”

Rodimus nodded, swallowing the urge to spill all of the thoughts that had been spinning through his head since he’d made the connection on the bus. Rodimus’s arguments with Optimus weren’t important at the moment.

“I moved here for them,” Drift said. “Wing – my ex – too. He left after a month or so, after Megatron punched that cop. He thought that their methods were too harsh, that the movement was going to collapse before accomplishing anything. But I disagreed, and I kept getting more and more involved. This – relates to my housing situation, I promise. One of my roommates is Megatron’s boyfriend.”

Rodimus tried to hide his shock. The idea of Megatron…being a person…was new enough, the thought of him having a boyfriend who _lived with one of Rodimus’s classmates_ was barely believable. Rodimus had spent too much time assuming that Megatron appeared in the world to make poetically worded speeches about social injustice and punch cops and then disappeared into the ether.

Drift’s gaze slid sideways again. “Anyway, Megatron just got out of jail, about a month ago, and things have been…intense, ever since.”

“Is he planning something?” Rodimus asked, eager. Drift bit his lip, looking uncomfortable. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Drift’s expression eased into a soft smile. “I appreciate that,” he said. “But no, he’s not. Life’s just been chaotic.”

Rodimus nodded, even though he couldn’t really draw the connection between what Drift was saying and why he’d felt the need to try to spend the night in the program office.

“The thing is…it’s Starscream’s fault he got arrested. If they were any other people they wouldn’t be _speaking_ , let along living together, but…they’re them. Starscream’s trying to get the organization going again, Megatron doesn’t want to…but I’m pretty sure half the things they do about it are just to get on each other’s nerves. Which they do. Loudly.” Drift bit his lip and looked off to the side. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

“It stays in this room,” Rodimus promised. “Where are you in all this? Do they like, try to use you against each other?”

“Nah, they ignore me,” Drift said, setting his empty plate down on the coffee table. “My opinion doesn’t matter, I’m a sellout.”

“Still shitty that you have to deal with all that.”

“Is what it is,” Drift said, voice bright but eyes not meeting Rodimus’s

 “Well, it’s getting late,” Rodimus said, grabbing both empty plates and walking them back into the kitchen. “Sheets and blankets for the futon are underneath in the storage compartment, I’ll show you how to pull it out.”

\--

Rodimus’s first alarm went off at six. He liked having a few extra hours on the morning of exams to study, rarely as he actually managed to utilize it. He was about to shut it off and try to get another half hour of sleep when he heard someone moving around in the living area, and immediately remembered Drift.

Rodimus stood up and walked over to his door, yawning as he opened it. Drift was indeed there, in a t-shirt and athletic shorts over leggings, pulling his hoodie back on. He looked up at the noise of Rodimus’s door opening, and Rodimus saw his eyes widen.

It wasn’t exactly a surprised expression, and Rodimus was confused for the moment before he realized that he had opened his door without putting on a shirt. For a second, he was torn. Ordinarily, he would have languished in the moment, posed in the doorframe or something. But he acutely found himself not wanting to make Drift uncomfortable.

Drift recovered himself, though, and Rodimus held still as Drift straightened, zipping up his hoodie. “I was just going to head to the gym,” he said, voice quiet, mindful of Bee’s now-closed door. “Thanks for letting me crash.”

“No problem,” Rodimus said. He blinked, trying to finish waking up. “You’re going to the gym?” He realized belatedly that he probably shouldn’t say such a thing like it was the foreign concept that it was.

“Yeah. Wanna come?” Drift said. He either hadn’t caught Rodimus’s tone, or was willing to forgive him for it.

“Sure,” Rodimus found himself saying. What was so hard about it? He owned sneakers. He played Frisbee with Bee and the others when it was warm out. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do gym stuff. “I’ll be ready in five, that okay?”

“Sure, take your time.”

Rodimus got dressed in a red t-shirt and matching red shorts, then luckily caught sight of himself in the mirror and realized how fucking bad that looked. He switched the shorts out for black ones, laced up his sneakers, grabbed a pair of jeans and a different t-shirt to change into, and opened his door back up.

Drift had his laptop open on the couch, but he shut it and slipped it into his bag as Rodimus closed his bedroom door behind him.

The morning air was crisp and still, and the bus got them from Rodimus’s street to campus faster than Rodimus had ever known it to. Rodimus followed Drift across a quad and into the gym building. The desk at the entrance to the fitness center (which Rodimus _had_ visited before. One time. He thought. Possibly on a campus tour.) was being manned by a tired-eyed undergrad who waved Drift through without even making him swipe his ID.

Drift put down his bag next to a set of empty cubbies. Rodimus followed him, and then kept following Drift like a puppy over  to the row of treadmills.

Drift grinned as Rodimus stepped up on the machine next to him. “You don’t come here much, do you?”

“What gave it away?” Rodimus asked.

Drift just raised his eyebrows in a way that Rodimus interpreted as _everything_. He started his treadmill and said “I hadn’t really worked out in a gym setting until I started here. I was working in admissions over the summer to pay rent, so I had free access. It was just a distraction, at first. But it turns out everything they say about exercise and mental health is onto something.”

“What was it a distraction from?” Rodimus asked. Over the summer would have been between Megatron’s arrest and his release – Rodimus couldn’t tell why it would have been a stressful time.

“Getting sober,” Drift said, voice flat and matter-of-fact and concealing a wealth of emotions, Rodimus was sure. “I don’t think I would have made it, if I hadn’t replaced drugs and drinking with something else.”

“Congrats,” Rodimus offered, not sure what else he could say.

“That’s also when I started having issues with my house,” Drift said. “Starscream and Soundwave were always on something, especially back then.” He glanced over at Rodimus, who had been sneaking as many peeks at Drift as he could while staying steady on the treadmill. “Sorry for the info dump. I guess I haven’t really talked to anybody about all this before.”

Rodimus grabbed the sidebar on the treadmill so he could look at Drift properly. “You got sober while living with people who were using and without having any support system?”

Drift was silent for a moment, keeping his gaze carefully straight ahead. “Didn’t have much of a choice,” he finally said. He looked over at Rodimus, cheeks starting to flush pink. “You warmed up?”

“Yeah.” Rodimus had no idea what ‘warmed up’ was supposed to feel like.

Drift shut off his treadmill and Rodimus, after a bit of fumbling, followed suit. Despite the heaviness of the conversation, Drift’s posture looked more relaxed than Rodimus had ever seen it as he led Rodimus over to the freeweights.

They traded off sets, Drift going first on everything and giving Rodimus pointers about his form the whole time. Rodimus could already tell that his arms were going to ache like crazy tomorrow, but it was worth it for the times Drift put his hands on Rodimus to correct his posture.

“Let me buy you breakfast, it’s the least I can do,” Drift said as they walked back across the slowly-filling gym to get their bags. “That, and I’ll quiz you on nonprofit management until the test.”

Rodimus groaned. He’d tried so hard to forget about the test. But Drift kept his word, and Rodimus suspected that he could credit Drift for at least half of the correct answers he managed to get.

-

_Hey wanna study tonight?_

Rodimus frowned down at his phone as he dragged his feet towards class. Dragging his feet meant that he could slip into class at the last minute, could have another hour to pretend he hadn’t seen Drift’s text.

Of course he wanted to study with Drift tonight. But Optimus was going to be in town tonight, to give a talk at the University tomorrow, and he was taking Rodimus and Bumblebee and Prowl out to dinner.

And _of course_ Rodimus wanted to do that, wanted to see Optimus. But he was nervous for it, for reasons that had nothing to do with Drift, and taking the out was so, so tempting.

Rodimus walked into the classroom and took his usual seat next to Drift. He cringed – the professor was still talking to some other students at the front of the room. Apparently Rodimus hadn’t walked slow enough.

“Did you get my text?” Drift asked. It wasn’t an unfair question – Rodimus forgot to charge his phone often enough that the answer very well could have been no.

Rodimus took a deep breath, ready to spill it all, just as the professor called the class to attention. Rodimus absorbed exactly zero words of the introduction to today’s activities, agonizing over how much to tell Drift instead. When the professor finally passed out the case studies they were to work on with a partner, Rodimus felt about ready to combust.

“I have another thing, and it would be really rude not to go, I’m sorry,” Rodimus said, before Drift could get in a word about the case or anything else.

Drift blinked, confusion setting in on his features. “Something you’re nervous about?”

Rodimus raked his hands through his hair, then folded them at the back of his neck. “Optimus is going to be in town – the first time since he left.”

Drift nodded. “That’s…not a good thing? You talk about him all the time.”

Rodimus tried to give Drift a flat look for calling him out like that, but wasn’t sure if it showed through his general nervousness. “I just…what if he’s disappointed in me? I haven’t done any real social justice work – anything but school, really – since he left. He’ll think I’m just a waste of all that time he spent mentoring me.” Rodimus recognized how silly it sounded when it all spilled out of his mouth, but that didn’t diminish the chorus of _what if_ s still screeching in the back of his mind.

“No way.” Drift had started shaking his head while Rodimus was still speaking. “He wanted you to do this program, right?”

“He’s the only—he’s the main reason I am.”

“You’ve spent the last six months improving yourself and developing the ability to effectively do the kind of work you want to do in the future. There’s literally no way he won’t be proud of that.”

The words didn’t really ease Rodimus’s worries, but Drift’s optimism was still encouraging. “We’re getting dinner, it might not take that long,” Rodimus said. “I’ll probably be free around nine, if you want to get together then.”

“Text me when you get out, then,” Drift replied. “So, about all that working hard in school-“ He pushed Rodimus’s case study worksheets into his line of sight. Rodimus forgave him the obnoxiousness for the soft smile still on his face.

-

Rodimus hadn’t worn a button-up shirt in _months_ , he realized, miffed, as he dressed for dinner. A good sartorial day, these days, was when he wore jeans instead of sweatpants to class. The last time he’d eaten at a restaurant other than Subway was also – uh…

“You ready to go?” Bumblebee asked from Rodimus’s doorway. Prowl, who lived in the neighborhood and was also getting a ride from Rodimus, was behind him, looking judgmentally around their maybe-not-the-cleanest-ever student apartment.

“’Course,” Rodimus said, faking a breezy smile as he pulled on a coat. He threw his keys up in the air, did the zipper, and then caught them. “Let’s do this.”

He could practically _hear_ Prowl rolling his eyes as they exited the apartment, but Rodimus was too wrapped up in nerves and genuine excitement to care much.

Optimus was waiting in the entrance when they arrived, chatting with the girl at the hostess stand. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” he said to her. “Please come find me after the talk if you have questions.”

Then he turned to the three of them, and all of Rodimus’s nervousness fled. This was _Optimus_. He was going to change the world for the better and pull everyone in his radar up with him. “It’s so great to see you,” he said.

“And you.” Optimus held out his hand, and Rodimus shook it, with exactly as firm a grip as Optimus had taught him.

They sat down, ordered drinks, talked too much to have time to look at the menus, ordered specials, and for all of it Rodimus forgot that he had ever been nervous. So what if Bumblebee and Prowl were already accomplishing great things in the community on their own? Rodimus was younger, and like Drift had said, he was working towards it.

“And what have you been up to recently?” Optimus asked, turning to Rodimus after giving Prowl advice about how to handle the bad leadership at the organization he was interning at.

“School’s taking up most of my time, to be honest.”

“You’re doing the MCDP?” There was more surprise in Optimus’s voice than Rodimus would have preferred.

“Passing my classes, too,” Rodimus said, deciding that the glib tone would fall flat as he was saying it, and owning it anyway.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Optimus said, still sounding weirdly surprised. Rodimus cocked his head at the tone, and Optimus noticed and explained himself. “I was never sure if MCDP was the right fit for you. I’m glad to hear that it is.”

“But…you told me to apply, you sent me the application.”

“Because I hoped it would provide you the direction that you need. I’m glad to hear that it has.”

The food arrived then, thankfully keeping Rodimus from having to figure out what to say next.

-

_Any chance I could come study at your place?_

Rodimus sent the text as he dawdled over changing out of his restaurant clothes, hoping to have an excuse to breeze past Bumblebee and Prowl in the living room by the time he finished.

_If you really want to? SW & co are playing video games in the living room and Starscream has been trying to provoke Megatron into a fight all evening. _

That was just…surreal. Rodimus couldn’t talk about what Optimus had said with Bumblebee and Prowl. He couldn’t talk about it with them around. But that situation sounded possibly, still, even worse.

_Library then?_

_Sure see you there._

Perfect. Rodimus pulled his coat back on over his sweatshirt and grabbed his backpack. He swung open his door and strolled toward the entrance to the apartment.

“Heading out? This late?” Bumblebee asked. It was almost nine-thirty.

“Studying with Drift.” Rodimus shrugged the shoulder his backpack was hanging off of. “We have to go to the talk tomorrow night, and we have a test Friday.”

Bumblebee raised his eyebrows. “Have fun.” He was always a little bit weird about Drift, enough so that Rodimus suspected that he knew Drift’s history.

Rodimus just raised a hand to wave goodbye instead of responding.

He caught the bus only about a minute after he got to the stop, and tried to appreciate the luck despite how Optimus’s comments on his life choices were still reverberating in his head and making his skin crawl. He got to the library before Drift, and snagged a corner table in the group study area on the ground floor. He texted Drift where he was, got out the notebook with his notes for the test, and then stared at the cover, ruminating.

“Hey.” Drift looked exhausted, and Rodimus instantly felt bad for asking him to meet up so late. Drift always looked kind of exhausted, but still.  

“Hey,” Rodimus said, opening his notebook as Drift sat down across from him.

“How’d it go?”

Rodimus sighed, studying already forgotten again. “Optimus never cared if I did this program.”

Rodimus had his fists over his eyes, so he couldn’t see Drift’s expression during the long silence that followed his statement. “He can’t have really said that.”

Rodimus, feeling called out on being dramatic, uncovered his eyes. “He basically actually did.” He described the conversation as accurately as he could. “He never believed in me, never thought that I could really make a difference. He just wanted me to _find the direction that I needed_.” That, Rodimus remembered verbatim, and suspected that he would for a long time.

“Do you believe you can make a difference?” Drift asked, voice quiet, when he finished.

“I don’t _know_. If Optimus doesn’t believe in me, then no one ever really has. And it doesn’t seem like something I can judge for myself.”

“Hey.” Drift’s soft voice coaxed Rodimus to stop pinching his temples and bring his eyes to Drift’s. Drift’s face was serious, intense in a way Rodimus hadn’t often seen it.

“Hm?”

“I believe in you.”

Rodimus had to laugh a little bit.

“I mean it,” Drift said. “Look at me.”

Rodimus did.

“You are creative, and dedicated, and a good person,” Drift said. “You want to help people as best you can in the world, and you’re still looking for the best way to do it, and that’s okay. Whatever path you’re meant for – it’s out there, and you’re going to find it.”

“Thanks,” Rodimus said, much as he wanted to deny it, to disagree. He didn’t want to invalidate what Drift had said. And more than that, he desperately wanted Drift to be right. “I really do need to study,” Rodimus said instead.

“Then we can study.” Drift turned around to pull out his own books, leaving Rodimus to grin unnoticed at the back of his head.

-

Rodimus flipped frantically through the essay his professor had handed back, alarm raising at every new red mark he noticed. He finally exhaled when he saw the B- written and circled in red ink on the last page. Not the best ever, but enough to maintain a passing grade.

Rodimus went back through the essay, actually reading the comments this time. Good points, mostly. Some stuff he was kicking himself for not noticing, some stuff he could genuinely improve on.

When he finished and looked up, Drift was already yanking his backpack over his shoulders next to him. “You free this afternoon?” Rodimus asked. Their other class had been cancelled to give them time to work independently on a project. Rodimus did his best independent work when Drift was focusing on his own work next to him.

“Uh-“ Drift was looking down at the floor, one hand gripping the back of a chair for dear life.

“You okay?” Rodimus asked.

Drift nodded unconvincingly, pursing his lips and still not looking at Rodimus.

“Hey, just a sec,” Rodimus said, stuffing the essay into his backpack and zipping it. Drift waited and then followed him away from the classroom and out to the bus stop without speaking.

Rodimus turned to Drift, hoping that Drift would spill whatever was bothering him now that they were away from their classmates.

Drift looked marginally less upset now, but he still turned his gaze towards the ground as he answered Rodimus’s implicit question. “I just didn’t do well on the essay.”

“That’s it?” Rodimus asked, genuinely skeptical. Drift let so much bullshit just slide off, Rodimus could hardly conceptualize him being bothered by a bad grade.

“Yep. That’s it. I’m that overreactive.”

Rodimus realized his mistake and tried to backpedal. “Hey, I didn’t mean to – diminish it, or whatever.” Drift shrugged his shoulders jerkily, not seeming inclined to say any more. “Look, I’ve done plenty of overreacting, if you’d believe it“ – a huff of laughter from Drift – “and the best advice I ever got about it was that overreacting isn’t real. If it seems like you’re overreacting, you’re reacting to something bigger and worse than whatever the immediate problem is.” That advice had come from Optimus, of course, but Drift didn’t need to know that. “Does that sound accurate?”

Drift shrugged in as close to affirmation as Rodimus felt he was likely to get. He didn’t offer anything else.

“Let’s go to my place, watch a movie or something,” Rodimus said.

“We’re supposed to work on the-“

“Yeah, yeah, but when was the last time you did anything fun?”

As expected, silence and a sullen look from Drift.

“We’ll have plenty of time for the project this weekend.”

“Fine,” Drift said, just as the bus pulled up.

They didn’t end up watching a movie. Drift wanted to make cookies, which involved a convenience store run, and when that was done Rodimus snagged Bumblebee’s collection of board games. Drift looked a little less miserable after a few rounds of mancala, and even laughed out loud when Rodimus “accidentally” flipped the board over, sending all the marbles flying, when he was clearly about to lose.

“I’ll tell you what the bigger thing is,” Drift said as they picked up the scattered pieces. “If you really want to know.”

Rodimus abandoned his search for marbles that may have disappeared under the futon to meet Drift’s eyes. “Of course I do,” he said. “You can tell me anything.”

“It’s just, that was really good advice,” he continued, eyes going back to scoping the floor for marbles. “The real problem is also dumb-“

“Drift-“

“School is kind of all I have right now, is the thing? My living situation sucks. I basically cut ties with all of my friends. So if school’s also going badly…there’s just no point.”

Rodimus looked sharply up at Drift.

“That came out wrong – it’s not that bad, really.” Drift’s gaze was darting between Rodimus and the ground.

“You have me,” Rodimus said. Maybe it was narcissistic of him, or whatever, but that didn’t make it false. He’d made Drift laugh this afternoon, gotten him to talk about this – that had to count as a good thing. Didn’t it?

Drift just smiled. “I think we should get to work on the project.” Rodimus never found an opening to change the subject back.

-

It was the first day of finals, and Rodimus was again on campus at eleven at night. He really had been studying, if staring blankly at his notes while thinking about Drift counted as studying.

He’d hung out with Drift plenty since that afternoon when Drift had admitted how unhappy he was. They studied together, got lunch between classes, had gone to a fundraiser at the nonprofit where Bumblebee was doing his internship. But the whole time, Drift had seemed to have grown an aversion to talking about things. Every time Drift showed up for class looking like he hadn’t slept at all, or spent a lecture uncharacteristically twitchy and distracted, and Rodimus had asked as gently as he could if everything was alright, Drift had insisted that it was. Drift was refusing to ask for help, leaving Rodimus stymied for how to offer it.

And of course, it was easier to worry about that than to dwell on _why_ it was bothering him this much. Anything would be easier than dwelling on Drift’s tiny smiles that Rodimus made Rodimus’s day when he managed to elicit them, on the ridiculously heady thrill of Drift putting his hand on Rodimus’s shoulder as he swung into the café seat across from him, on that one morning at the campus gym, seeing Drift’s relaxed shoulders and easier-than-usual smile.

Rodimus didn’t dare mention it. Not when Drift had so much chaos in his life, not when Rodimus had been given the distinct impression that he was Drift’s only real confidante.

The extra layer of weirdness that had developed because of _that_ made ignoring his feelings easier. Drift was…too nice, to Rodimus. Uncomfortably nice. He helped Rodimus study, bought him coffee, listened and gave advice every time Rodimus had a crisis over school and/or what he was doing with his life. (Bumblebeee had told him to get over himself after hearing about it _once_.)

“You know you don’t owe me anything, right?” Rodimus had asked after Drift had listened to one such tirade while cooking dinner at Rodimus’s apartment last week.

“I know.” Puzzlingly, Drift had looked disappointed as he’d said it. Then he’d changed the subject to one of their classes.

Rodimus gave up trying to study…grant writing and development work, or whatever, and shut his book. He’d avoided doing this. He’d had the distinct impression that Drift wanted his space, wanted his privacy. But it was finals week, and Rodimus…he had to check. He wasn’t sure how else to show Drift that he cared, not when Drift kept denying him the opportunity to say it.

The student office was dark, just like it had been the night Rodimus had come in after hours to print his written exam. Like he had that day, Rodimus opened the door and turned on the light.

Empty. Not even having fabricated an excuse for being there this time, Rodimus walked right back out.

-

The next day made five days of Drift avoiding him. Rodimus arrived early at the exam in hopes of talking to Drift before it started, but Drift had slipped in the back and then disappeared before Rodimus had even completed the test. Rodimus sent him a _hey, wanna study econ this afternoon_? text, but never got a reply

Instead, Rodimus went to the writing center to get help on one of his final papers. He almost walked back out when Ultra Magnus, who seemed to _love_ editing Rodimus’s papers, was nowhere to be seen. The gangly bespeckled student behind the desk smiled encouragingly at him, though, and Rodimus found himself stepping forward to sit down on the other side of his desk.

“You’re here for the grad writing center?” the attendant asked.

“Yeah.” Rodimus gave the guy his name and program. “I usually see Mags, is he around?”

“I believe he’s proctoring an exam right now. My name is Rung, I’m in the clinical psychology program.”

 _Huh_. Rung was a legend. Nobody seemed to know who his advisor was or how long he’d been at the university. Rodimus hoped that translated to being good at papers and patient with first-years who still didn’t know which one _affect_ was. “I have the structure of the paper pretty much down, but my SDO paperwork says I can get help with organization and stuff even on graded assignments.”

Rung seemed to take that at face value, holding his hand out for the paper. Rodimus passed the copy he’d printed to him, and Rung started editing, striking through the word Decembmer in his heading before even getting to the paper itself.

Rodimus didn’t realize how deeply he’d sunk into brooding over Drift again until Rung said _“Rodimus_ ” in a tone that made Rodimus fairly certain it was his second time saying it.

“Yes?” Rodimus said guiltily.

“I was going to ask if you meant 501-c-3 here, or if it was referring to the 501-c-1 organizations you were discussing earlier in the paragraph, but I’m getting the impression that there’s something else on your mind,” Rung said.

“It’s not a school thing,” Rodimus promised. “Just this boy. And I did mean 501-c-1, there.”

Rung made the correction on the printout. “Well, if you need a listening ear, I’m happy to provide it.”

“Actually, yeah,” Rodimus said, and then he found himself spilling all of the thoughts that had been languishing in his head since last week.

“Have you considered that he may have been doing those nice things for you for a reason other than feeling like he owes you something?” Rung asked when Rodimus stopped for breath.

“No?” Rodimus said. “What other reason-“ He found himself trailing off at the look on Rung’s face. It was at the same time, somehow, incredulous and knowing. Like there should be something right in front of Rodimus’s face, something discernable from what he’d said…

The realization was like being struck by lightning. Drift greeted Rodimus by touching him, every time they met up. He smiled at Rodimus in a way Rodimus had never seen him smile at anyone or anything else. He made sure Rodimus did his homework and surprised him with his favorite coffee at the beginning of his least favorite class and _oh_.

“You think he likes me?” Rodimus could barely form the words.

“I think it’s a possibility worth pursuing,” Rung said. Rodimus caught a smile on his face as his eyes went back to Rodimus’s paper.

-

_Can we talk please_

Rodimus tore his eyes away from the message he’d sent – still unread – at the scent of something burning. He swore and turned off the burner – he’d manage to fuck up his grilled cheese, just like the old days.

Rodimus made himself put his phone in his room for the duration of the time it took to make himself a replacement sandwich (the first one was unsalvageable, and he considered himself to have a high tolerance for such things), and rushed in to check on it as soon as the sandwich was ready.

Still nothing. Rodimus frowned, then took a bite of his perfectly toasted sandwich to appease himself. Then he nearly choked on it when Drift finally replied _. Sure. Want to meet up or call?_

 _Meet? I could pick you up,_ Rodimus texted back.

Drift was typing for a few seconds, then _I could walk to your place_.

 _Nonsense. It’s gross out and I have a car_ , Rodimus replied. He didn’t usually drive to campus because the student lot took longer to walk from than taking the bus took, but he did indeed have a car. He decided to take a chance. _Please let me pick you up._

Drift’s next message was an address. Rodimus’s phone told him it was about a mile down the street. _See you in 10_ , he texted back, abandoning the rest of his sandwich for now. His stomach was practically too twisted up to eat anyway – now that he’d gotten Drift to agree to meeting up with him, he had the conversation itself to worry about.

Winter had finally hit full force, and Rodimus had to spend a few minutes brushing a dusting of snow off of his car before he could pull out of the building’s parking lot. He might have pushed the speed limit a little bit on his way down the street, may have been thinking a little bit more about Drift than he was thinking about the road.

And he may have come to a rolling stop at the last intersection before Drift’s house, and, not seeing any immediately obvious traffic, accelerated again without checking too closely –

May have realized mid-intersection that was about to enter a one-way going the other direction and he actually had to make a left here to be able to stop on the street in front of Drift’s house, may have stopped and started to turn the wheel before realizing he had to reverse a few feet if he was going to make it –

All of which would have been _fine_ if someone hadn’t come barreling down Drift’s street at too fast of a speed for Rodimus to do anything about it before the earsplitting _wrunch_ of the other car’s front bumper crumbling his passenger door and his head was cracking against the window –

Rodimus’s vision was blurry for a second with shock, and then he realized the car was still moving and managed to slam on the brake, throwing the parking brake on for good measure. His head was spinning nauseatingly, and the rest of his body felt too numb for him to know if he was injured.

He had no idea how long he sat there, too dizzy to even consider getting out of the car, but the next thing he registered was a knock on the window next to him and the brightness of a flashlight sending a new flash of pain through his head.

“Sir? Can you roll down the window?” The cop’s words could have come from underwater. Rodimus understood them enough to obey though, and managed to follow the order.

The cool air made Rodimus feel a little more lucid. The splitting pain in his head was still there, but the rest of him felt – okay. Normal. He reached over to turn the car off, and then passed the keys from his right hand to his left so he could stuff them in his usual pocket, and _yikes_ apparently his shoulder was fucked up too.

Everything seemed to happen quickly after that. A policeman asked him a bunch of questions while an EMT asked him a bunch of different questions and put a restraining collar around his neck.

“We’re gonna get you into an ambulance now, okay?” the EMT said after the cop had gone back to his car. The whole intersection was lit up blue and red from Rodimus couldn’t count how many cop cars.

“Okay,” Rodimus said, after trying to nod and being rudely reminded of the collar. Just then, he spotted a familiar silhouette running towards the scene, long hair whipping around in the wind.

“Drift!” he shouted, even though he doubted Drift could hear him from the opposite side of the open window. He saw Drift stop in front of the other driver. He said something to the other driver, who was standing on the sidewalk with his arms crossed, and then pointed at Rodimus’s car. Rodimus had never seen that kind of rage in Drift’s body language. For a long moment, Rodimus thought that Drift was going to hit the guy.

But then Drift locked eyes with Rodimus and jogged across the intersection.

“I’m sorry,” Rodimus said when Drift appeared behind the EMTs who were preparing a stretcher outside the open door.

“Don’t even fucking start,” Drift said. He inhaled carefully, then sniffled. His eyes were red. Rodimus reached out with the hand that wasn’t attached to his injured shoulder, and Drift grasped it securely in his own. “ _I’m_ sorry,” he said. “This is all my fault. I never should have let you-“

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rodimus said. “I wanted to come. I wanted to see you. I asked for the address.”

“That’s my roommate Starscream,” Drift said. “I knew he was high when he left. I should have guessed he was driving, he does it _all the fucking time_ , and I knew you were coming-“ He had to stop to get his breathing under control.

Rodimus squeezed his hand, wishing he wasn’t too injured to just hug him. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “It’s _not_ your fault.”

“Sir? We have to get your friend to the hospital,” one of the EMTs said from behind where Drift was crouched on the snow-dusted road. Drift loosened his grip uncomplainingly, and Rodimus managed to brush his thumb over the back of Drift’s hand one last time before the connection was gone.

“Can he come?” Rodimus asked, then realized that wasn’t the where he should have started. He turned his eyes to Drift. “Can you come?”

“Of course,” Drift said.

“You can ride up front with me,” one of the EMTs said. “Right now, we just have to get him out of the car.”

-

The emergency department’s best feature, by far, was the ice chips. The hospital staff had examined him, cut his shirt off and replaced it with a hospital gown, and sent him off for some kind of brain scan. Drift had been there for all of it, hovering anxiously but forcing a reassuring smile whenever he’d noticed Rodimus looking at him.

Now it was just the two of them in the room, waiting for…the results of the scans? Probably that. Rodimus had complained about being thirsty, and Drift had found a nurse who gave him permission to give Rodimus ice chips, which helped a tiny bit with both the thirst and the nausea. They were weirdly porous, which was nice because Rodimus could dissolve them in his mouth without it taking five years like with a normal ice cube.

And with the physical discomfort down to ignorable levels, Rodimus could turn his attention to Drift. “It’s not your fault,” he said, suspecting that it hadn’t gotten through the first time.

Drift’s full-body flinch confirmed his suspicions. “I never wanted this _bullshit_ to touch you,” he insisted. “This wouldn’t have happened if not for me.”

“I want to be a part of your life, though,” Rodimus said. “No matter what. Obviously I could have done without this happening,” he stifled an overwhelmed laugh at the insurance stuff and legal stuff and other nonsense he was going to have to deal with when he got out of here, and forced himself to focus, “but I care about you, and I don’t want you to have to deal with anything alone.”

There were tears in Drift’s eyes again, which Rodimus would have felt bad about if he wasn’t sure he was on the verge of a breakthrough. “You deserve better than this.”

Drift turned away, then. Rodimus looked awkwardly down at his cup of slowly-melting ice chips rather than watch Drift reach for the box of tissues on one of the shelves.

“We still need to have that talk you wanted to have,” Drift said after a few slow, shaky breaths. He’d managed to turn back toward Rodimus, at least.

If he was hoping for a change of subject, he was in for disappointment. Drift’s well-being, it turned out, held Rodimus’s attention like nothing had since his old job at the community center. “This is that conversation,” Rodimus said. “I worry about you, and you brush it off. You refuse to let yourself be happy, and that makes me feel like I can’t be happy either.”

Drift didn’t respond for a minute, and Rodimus spent it worrying that he’d said the last bit too fast to be understandable, that he’d have to repeat it. But when Drift looked up, he looked like he was seeing Rodimus with brand new eyes, and Rodimus knew he’d understood.

“I was never trying to push you away,” Drift said. “I think…I guess I just never really adjusted to life after the revolution died. I got sober and went back to school, but it was all…robotic. I did it because it felt like the thing I was supposed to do. And then I met you, and you-“ Drift took another shaky breath. “You made me feel like I could be a person again. I was terrified that mixing you in with the rest of my life would lead to _this_ , first of all, but also that really letting you in would break it. It was dumb, and it was unfair.”

“The point of this isn’t for you to be hard on yourself,” Rodimus said. He took a deep breath. “The point is – I really like you.” He struggled to hold his tongue, to leave it at that. Let Drift pick up the thread if he wanted to.

The second he waited for Drift’s response, even as he watched a smile light up Drift’s face one feature at once, was torture. “I really like you too,” Drift said. In that moment, the car crash, the hospital, Starscream, the final paper he still had to edit – none of it mattered. Only Drift’s smile mattered.

\--

“Don’t-“

“ _Ow_.”

“Don’t try to _lift that,_ Rodimus, your shoulder-“

“Mostly works!”

“Just give me the box.” Drift was trying his best to sound exasperated, but he wasn’t doing a great job of it. He hadn’t quite stopped smiling all day, and the smile was still there now, just on the edges of his lips as Rodimus surrendered the box labeled _kitchen_ to Drift’s actually-working arms.

Rodimus grabbed a more manageable laundry bag full of linens and swung it over his right shoulder. His left was _sort of, technically_ still recovering from the accident three weeks ago, but he really only felt it as a twinge when he tried to put on both of his backpack straps, or apparently lift heavy boxes off of Drift’s counter.

Soon to be Drift’s _former_ counter. Rodimus estimated that they had one more trip to make up and down the rickety stairs, and then all of Drift’s stuff would be on its way to his new apartment. He’d managed to snag a sublet with a medical student whose roommate was doing some kind of fellowship abroad next semester, and passed the remaining half-year of his current lease off to “one of Soundwave’s terrible friends” who apparently basically lived at the apartment anyway.

Rodimus and Drift got the kitchen stuff and linens to the car without any more mishaps, and went back for the last couple of boxes.

“Excited to see the back of this place?” Rodimus asked as he looked around for anything that had been boxed up and somehow forgotten about. Rodimus had barely seen the place before today. It looked – normal, he thought. It was clean except for some stains on the rugs, and smelled faintly of weed. There was EDM that Rodimus still hadn’t decided if he found pleasant or not emanating from one closed door, and silence behind the other.

But it was two PM on a Saturday, and Rodimus suspected that the closed doors were a courtesy. He was secretly pretty glad that he could only guess what had driven Drift to spend more time at Rodimus’s than here as he’d worked out his new lease.

Not to say that Drift staying with him didn’t come with benefits. But Bumblebee was starting to get visibly annoyed with his constant presence. With Drift in a new place, they could trade off imposing on their roommates.

“Oh, you’re still here.” Someone had appeared in the door of the apartment before Drift got around to answering Rodimus’s question.

“Just leaving, Starscream,” Drift said, ducking past the guy, who just watched bemusedly instead of stepping out of the way. Drift motioned with his head for Rodimus to follow.

“Watch where you’re fucking going, next time,” Rodimus said, making sure the still-fading bruise on his cheek was in Starscream’s line of sight as he, too, pushed past.

They loaded the rest of the boxes in the back of Rodimus’s car (which had been fixed, pricily). Drift shut the trunk, then leaned against it, bracing himself with both hands.

It was the easiest thing in the world to nudge Drift’s hand into his. “You made it,” he said, swinging their joined hands between them to get Drift to look up at him. Finally he did, smile still lighting his features. “How are we going to celebrate?”

“ _First_ , unpack,” Drift said, looking up at the second-floor windows one last time and then slowly letting go of Rodimus’s hand so that they could both get in the car.

Rodimus shut the driver’s side door behind him as Drift did the same with the newly-repaired passenger side. “No, first this,” he said, pulling Drift into a deep kiss.

Drift broke away with a laugh. “Then unpack,” he teased.

“Then unpack,” Rodimus repeated, arm still loose around Drift’s shoulder, other hand on Drift’s forearm. He waited.

“Then…be happy.”

**Author's Note:**

> [You are allowed to leave.](https://twitter.com/erynnbrook/status/1046055387617775616?lang=en)
> 
> \- 
> 
> The bit that depicts the motor vehicle accident starts with "Winter had finally hit full force"
> 
> Immediate aftermath goes through "“Drift!” he shouted, even though he doubted Drift could hear him". The next scene takes place in a hospital but contains almost no medical content. If you have any questions please comment & I'll get back to you, or message me on tumblr at choomchoom. 
> 
> -
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
